


Empty Hallways

by selenagomez



Category: Adrixie Cinematic Universe
Genre: Brandon may or may not have feelings, Dom/sub, F/F, F/M, Getting to know you, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, thoughts and feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:54:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24167683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/selenagomez/pseuds/selenagomez
Summary: Brandon Beiste would be sure that Shirley Cooper was a robot if she wasn't so bad at cooking, there's no other reason that a person could manage to be that perky.
Relationships: Shirley Cooper/Brandon Beiste





	1. Chapter 1

Usually, the historic halls of Oak accommodation were a bustling stream of activity. You couldn’t pass down one of the richly red-carpeted corridors without being affronted with someone carrying some kind of oversized sports equipment or dragging some prattling submissive with them. The common room was always filled with nothing but complaints of how fucking difficult it was to get anywhere in the mess of winding tunnels that made up the famous living area. But today the corridors were empty, the freshly vacuumed floors almost completely free of human life. It had been that way for a couple of weeks now since ever fussing parents demanded that their children be returned home to them for lockdown despite the constant assertion that of course their babies weren’t spoiled, and were perfectly capable Dominants. And Brandon Beiste was quite frankly sick of it. 

At first, being one of the few remaining students on campus had been fun, there’d been little competition for the larger quantity of lingering submissives, more space in which to enjoy them and less boring pricks to lecture him on the history of the building. But as the weeks dragged on more people left campus, and those who remained tended to group together in their own accommodation blocks. Leaving Oak distinctly empty, and Brandon without entertainment. It didn’t help that his phone was filled with nothing but texts from Rocco crowing about how well everyone was getting on and how he should come home. Brandon wasn’t going to go back there, not with everyone playing happy fucking families. 

Walking down the hallway he kicked at the carpet, maybe he would call Katseya and see where she was staying for the lockdown. His Dad had never said that he had to stay at the school, in fact, he’d made a pretty good case for him leaving. As he turned the corner the silence was broken by some faint humming, glancing down the hall he stopped a semi-familiar face sitting cross-legged across from one of the doors. It was the over-enthusiastic girl who volunteered for that stupid medical service, she was wearing a pair of oversized headphones and tucking into a box of something in her lap. Having nothing better to do Brandon went over to her and pulled her headphones off her head causing her to jump a little.

“What are you doing?” He asked, eyeing her box of food which appeared to be some kind of buns on a bed of rice. 

“Oh hello there Sir Brandon!” The girl chirped shuffling about so that she was sitting on her knees rather than cross-legged. “I’m just waiting for Sir Reynold to be done with Georgina in case he needs any medical help.” Brandon couldn’t help but roll his eyes at her, he’d thought this organisation was stupid when he’d first heard about it but in practice, it sucked even more. Imagine just waiting outside someone's room while they were fucking in case they fucked too hard. 

“That’s fucking stupid. You shouldn’t have to just wait around for them to be done. Couldn’t they at least call you or some shit?” He asked, not really sure why he was even bothering engaging in this conversation other than the fact that he was bored.

“Oh I don’t mind waiting, I just want to be helpful.” The girl shrugs, sticking her chopsticks into her food and then looking up at him. “Do you want a pork bun, I made them myself. The bottoms are a little bit burned but they’re my best ones yet!” Brandon eyes the items with a small amount of suspicion, they do smell good but he doesn’t like the sound of burnt. Weren’t submissives at this school supposed to be of decent quality, shouldn’t they all already be able to cook. The girl is still smiling at him so he takes one and without asking dipped it into the little saucepot that she has balanced in the box. The taste wasn’t bad at all though as she’d said the bottom was a bit burned. 

“How’d you get into Oak if you didn’t get signed in? I didn’t think strays were allowed to just fucking wander in here?” Brandon asked, taking another bun and watching her in case she protested but she just kept smiling.

“Marty from reception always lets me in, because I help out with the cleaning sometimes when Jemma is sick and I come in here to help with aftercare a lot. It’s just easier if I don’t have people to sign me in, it would ruin the mood for the scene if they had to let me in instead of tending to the sub.” She explains seeming totally unbothered by the whole thing. 

“Sounds fucking boring to me.” Brandon responds taking another bun. “How long have you been sitting out here?”

“About an hour.. Sir Reynold hasn’t told me if they need me yet so figured I’d eat my lunch and then if he’s not come out by dinner I’ll just go back to my dorm.” 

“Sounds a bit pathetic to me.” Brandon says, not caring if that hurts her feelings. She must know how stupid she looks sitting outside peoples rooms while they have sex waiting for someone to tell her whether or not she needs to mop up their mess. This girl needs to get a hobby. She doesn’t look offended though, instead, she just keeps smiling that stupid smile.

“Maybe, but at least I’m making sure that everyone gets the medical care that they need. A lot of people need a little extra hand when making sure that a submissive is medically taken care of. Not everyone can be a doctor, and I love helping.” She tells him without a hint of anger or resentment, Brandon wonders if she’s on some kind of drugs because he’s never met anyone this fucking chipper.

“Whatever.” He says taking the last bun out of her box. “See you around I guess.” Somehow her smile gets even wider.

“Bye Sir, have a nice day.” She chirps back, scooping her headphones from around her neck and putting them back on her ears as he walks away. 


	2. Day Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it's day two and brandon still doesn't know how to behave

Two days later Brandon finds himself boredly wandering the halls again, and he’s annoyed when he’s actually kind of glad to see the same girl sitting out in the corridor. He still can’t remember her name and seeing her again isn’t jogging his memory, she’s wearing those stupid chunky headphones again with pigtails sticking out either side, hasn’t she ever heard of fucking airpods? It’s not the 1980’s. Approaching her, he pulls her headphones off again. 

“You doing your stupid medical thing again?” He asks, eyeing the new box in her hands wondering if she’s got any more of those buns, not because they were all that good but more because they were different to the shit they served in the cafeteria. When she notices him she immediately shifts onto her knees again, which he does think is a bit weird, is she expecting he’s going to ask her to blow him or something. 

“Yup, though I don’t think they’re going to need me today because I’ve been here for a few hours now and nobody has said anything.” She tells him that same sappy smile on her face. “How are you today Sir Brandon? Finding things to do while we’re cooped up?” 

He doesn’t bother telling her again how fucking stupid it is that she’s just sitting around because she would just spew some crap about wanting to help and it’s not his job to try and get her to see how pathetic she looks. “I’m fine, but there’s nothing to do around here. It’s worse than the last place I was at.” He tells her, it’s true lockdown is way worse than rehab and that’s saying something. 

“You were at another school before this?” She asks. “Me too! But I transferred here last term because my parents didn’t think the last place was a good fit for me.”

“Kinda.” Is the only reply he bothers to give her, he’s not going to tell some random girl that he was in rehab in case she starts spreading it around. Subs could rarely be trusted not to gossip with one another because they didn’t really have anything better to do. Even Alexis who had no fucking friends had managed to spread his business to fucking everyone with her stupid songs. “What’s in the box?” He asks pointing to the little wooden thing, tired of waiting for her to offer some of whatever it is.

“Oh, they’re happy pancakes!” She says with excitement, opening the lid to reveal some slightly brown omelette looking things filled with meat and spring onions. “They’re a Vietnamese street food dish that my mom would always make for me. Each part of Vietnam has a slightly different version of them, but my moms are the best. I’ve been trying to learn to make them for years but my sauce is always a bit off.. They’re still good though, girl scouts honour.” She chatters, raising her spare hand as she explains. “Would you like some?”

“Yeah, are you shit at cooking everything?” He asks as she passes the box to him along with some chopsticks. 

“Mostly.. But if I work really hard then I usually get things in the end, I’m getting pretty good at making regular pancakes now.. And soup.” The chopsticks are harder to use for the pancakes than Brandon thought, the slippery insides dropping back into the box on the way to his mouth and splattering onto his shirt a little. 

“Don’t you have a fork or something?” He huffs through the mouthful, annoyed that he looked like he couldn’t eat his food without getting it all over himself. The flavours are good despite what she said about the sauce though he guesses that if he knew what it was supposed to taste like he’d probably see her faults better. 

“Sorry I don’t have one on me right now Sir..” She says, her smile faltering for a moment. “But I could go and get you one from downstairs?” She’s already getting up as she speaks like she’s a robot or something. If she wasn’t so shitty at cooking he’d think she actually might be a robot, but nobody would actually program a robot to be bad at something. 

“No.. I’ll be finished with it by the time you do that. It’s fine, it’s just annoying.” Brandon responds, not wanting her to scurry off when that door might open and whoever she was waiting might see him and think he was the cleanup crew. He did, however, take a seat on the floor, because there was no way that he was going to be able to eat this shit standing up. It might be lame to sit on the floor outside some strangers' dorm, but he supposed that at least he couldn’t get any more pathetic than her. 

“I’ll make sure to keep a fork on me from now on!” The girl responds as if she’s making some kind of solemn vow to herself. Which sort of makes Brandon want to roll his eyes, but it benefits him so he guesses he doesn’t care if she wants to carry around cutlery on the off chance that he decides to demand her lunch off her. She’s actually somehow better trained than any slave he’s ever met, maybe her parents were slaves or something, even the really desperate girls at his high school weren’t this eager to please. 

“What’s your name again?” He asks, deciding that he doesn’t care if she knows that he didn’t remember her name because honestly, he’s pretty sure at this point that he could call her anything he wants and she’d probably thank him. 

As he expected instead of looking offended she gives him another of her wide smiles, and Brandon notes that even though it seems to be her default expression it doesn’t feel fake like some of Daisys stupid stagey friends. “Shirley, Sir. Shirley Cooper.” She tells him reaching into the backpack that she has beside her and pulling out a granola bar. 

“Right.” He says, and then decides he may as well ask her something about herself while he was eating even if he tunes her out at least there’s no chance of hearing the people who are apparently fucking behind the door that they’re sitting staring at. “Why aren’t you at home then?” 

“My parents think it’s better if I don’t get used to being home again, plus my siblings are all home right now so it would be a bit of a squeeze if I was there too. My sister has had a baby so they’re using my old room as a nursery.” She responds though she doesn’t look upset about it. Brandon rolls his eyes, it’s just like an older sibling to think that their kid was more important.

“Siblings fucking suck. All of mine are at home at the moment, they’ve got kids too and I didn’t fancy listening to them screaming their heads off. Plus my brother is dating my bitch ex, and my parents are just letting her hang around. They always let everyone except me do whatever they want.” He tells her, and she turns to look at him with these big brown eyes that are full of earnestness and concern. 

“Oh.. that sounds really awful. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have an ex at my house.. Let alone dating one of my siblings.” She glances down at her lap and Brandon nods as he chomps down more food.

“It’s not even the first fucking time one my brothers has taken my submissive.” He tells her, enjoying how she looks back up from her lap with her eyes full of surprise. “My older brother stole my first serious girlfriend, and everyone acted like I was the bad guy. My mom even helped him do it.”

The submissive behind him has finally dropped her smile altogether, her brow marred by a frown. “That’s terrible! Siblings should always try to support one another.. Not go behind each other's backs... Is that why you stayed here? Because you don’t want to see them?” Her voice isn’t dripping with pity which he likes, he doesn’t want her to think he’s pathetic or anything.

“I mean I’m here because they’re all cunts, and I didn’t fancy being packed in like a fucking sardine and made to play happy fucking families.” He tells her, stabbing one of her pancakes with his chopstick. She gives him a little smile and starts to open the granola bar. “Give me that.” He demands, just to see if she would. Without any protest, she does so and then wraps her arms around her knees. 

“Well at least we get to still have the college experience, I don’t know if you’ve heard but we’re allowed to use the pool now and the theatre without booking!” She says as if swimming in a public pool was going to bring him any kind of enjoyment. He guesses that she’s maybe some kind of poor scholarship kid or something and that’s why she’s such a try-hard, scared if nobody likes her that they’ll kick her poor ass out.

“I like that there aren’t so many fucking people everywhere, I hate having to scale the wall every time I want to go to class.” He responds as he shovels more food into his mouth, her point was useless but even if it is boring there are reasons that it’s better than being at home otherwise he wouldn’t bother being here. 

“It is very cool to have everything to ourselves.” She agrees. “None of my roommates are here, it’s just a little old me with all that space, is your roommate still around?” 

“No his parents are pussies so they took him home as soon as the lockdown started,” Brandon says with a roll of his eyes. “Though he was shit company anyway.” He’s not really sure if that was true since he never really bothered to say much to the guy beyond making sure he would never touch any of Brandons shit. 

“I guess some people would rather just be together through all of this.” The brunette muses, Brandon doesn’t care about that statement either so he turns his attention back to the food in his lap. Finishing it despite the stupid eating utensils, she better be carrying that fucking fork next time he saw her. When it was done he shoved the box back at her, and decided that he’d had enough of sitting on the floor. Getting up he shoves the still uneaten granola bar in his pocket and looks down at her.

“See you around.” He says, and then when he’s halfway down the corridor he turns back just for a moment. “Don’t sit there forever, it’s fucking weird.” He orders and then heads back to his room without looking back.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> he wasn't looking for her okay?

He doesn’t see her the next day which annoys him. It’s not like he was looking or anything, but since he was passing by that way anyway he figured that he would drop by and see what she was eating. Her spot outside the door was empty, and momentarily he wondered if maybe she was finally actually needed and for a second he lingered before realising that was fucking pathetic and storming back to his room. 

He doesn’t leave his room the next day because he has better things to do than wander the corridors, instead, he stays in his room and tells Rocco what a pussy he is for going home. He stops texting back when Rocco sends a picture of some kind of wipeout set up that Alfie has constructed in the pool because fuck them. Why should they all be enjoying themselves? He goes to sleep pissed off, so he’s back in the hallways the next day because there must be some fucking chicks around here or at least someone looking for a fight. 

Instead, she’s back, wearing her headphones and with two little boxes sitting next to her today. This time he doesn’t manage to pull her headphones off because she spots him and pulls them off with one of those stupid smiles that she does that take up her entire fucking face. She gives him a wave-like he can’t fucking see that she’s sitting there.

“Hi, Sir Brandon!” She says like him walking near her has made her entire fucking day, which he supposes it probably did since all she seems to do is sit on the floor and burn food. “How are you today? I hoped I would see you today… I looked for you yesterday and Tuesday. I made you some Pho!” She tells him excitedly, opening one of the boxes next to her to reveal something that Brandon does have to admit smells pretty good.

“Yeah well, I had better things to do than hang around in a corridor.” He snaps, though he definitely wants whatever Pho is. “Besides, you weren’t here when I came past on Tuesday.” He accuses because he did check and he doesn’t like being fucking lied to. He should take the box and leave her here, he doesn’t need to hang around stupid lying bitches. 

“Oh.. no i was helping Miss Clarke that day so I was a couple of corridors over.” Shirley explains flushing red. “Sorry I should have mentioned that I don’t always help the same Dom, I did look for you though… after Miss Clarke dismissed me, I made you some Pho that day too. It’s what I’m best at, I thought you might like to eat some Vietnamese food that I didn’t murder.” Her face is marred by what seems to be genuine remorse, and she’s now holding the box of noodles in soup up to him earnestly and Brandon takes it despite the urge to leave her in the dust. 

“You should have mentioned it.” He agrees and then sniffs the bowl as she produces both a fork and spoon out of the giant backpack that’s sitting next to her on the floor. “What is Pho anyway?” He asks, looking at the delicately sliced pieces of pork on the top of the noodles.

“I’m sorry Sir it won’t happen again, I promise.” She makes the promise with that same intense sincerity that she made the fork promise, so Brandon guesses he’s inclined to believe her. Though he’s now slightly nervous she might try to give him some kind of schedule of where she’ll be, which will actually be a schedule of when other people are fucking which he doesn’t want at all. “Pho is a Vietnamese noodle soup, it’s pretty varied in actual taste but I made this one with pork stock since I know you like pork. I brought some seasons in case you wanted them.” The brunette explains the smile returning to her face as she opens the other box next to her to reveal a selection of spices and herbs. “In Vietnam, every cafe has different seasoning selections, so I just brought you the most common because I wasn’t sure what you liked!” 

Brandon sits down next to her with the soup and looks over at her selection. “Give it to me then.” He demands though he’s not really sure what to put on other than garlic powder. He watches her to see if she brought something to eat, but if she did then she doesn’t take it out of her bag. Instead, she just watches him, which is sort of creepy but he decides not to say anything about it because he’s too busy wrapping the noodles around the fork she gave him. Much fucking easier, he didn’t know why anyone would bother with chopsticks when this option was available. 

“Have you been busy?” She chirps. “I heard that there was a party over in Laurel the other day but I didn’t go because I was trying to make spaghetti and I burned it all to the bottom of the pan and I was worried I would never get it off if I didn't stay and scrape at it.” Brandon rolls his eyes, he has no idea how someone could fuck up spaghetti even he could make fucking spaghetti if he wanted to. He’s also slightly pissed that he hadn’t heard about his party in Laurel, though he guesses that the poor fucks were too scared to invite people from Oak to their thing, it was probably shit anyway since they were all charity cases. The Pho is good, definitely the best thing she’s made so far though since he’s never had it before he probably couldn’t tell if it was shit. 

“You’re from Vietnam?” It ignores her last statement, but he doesn’t care about telling her how he hadn’t bothered leaving his room other than to wander around the corridors. 

“No, I’m from Mississippi... But my Mom is...My Dad is from Mississippi too though his Mom is Vietnamese. We went there a lot when I was a kid to visit my grandparents, but we haven’t been back in a little while since my siblings started to move out and stuff.” He recognises the southern accent after she mentions Mississippi, though he probably wouldn’t have been able to place it if she hadn’t said anything.

“I’m Italian, we would go to visit our family in Italy all the time when I was a kid.” Brandon responds. “My family is very Italian, catholic, ten kids and huge fucking dinners every night.”

“Ten kids! Gee, I thought that two sisters, one brother and one-half brother was a lot, no wonder you felt like you were going to be squished if you went home.” The brunette responds with a tone of surprise, though Brandon is used to that reaction everyone is always so shocked to hear about how many siblings he has.

“I mean it wouldn’t matter that there are so many of them if they weren’t all entitled assholes who think they can do whatever they want without consequences. One of my sisters is literally psychotic and everyone thinks it’s funny or some shit.” Brandon declares, watching the way her eyes bulge a little with surprise. “She used to think it was funny to push me down the stairs and lock me in the cellar when I was like fucking three, and everyone thinks that’s a funny as fuck story to tell at dinner.” He obviously wasn’t going to tell this girl shit about the really fucked up things that went on in his family, but Audrey did this kind of shit in public so it was her own fault if people repeated it to other people.

Shirley frowns staring at her lap for a minute. “You’re a really strong person to have come out of all of that as put together as you are, you must be pretty proud of yourself for making it all the way out here even if your family aren’t very supportive.” That’s not really the response that he was expecting from her, but he guesses he is pretty fucking badass to have managed to go to claiming college after getting lied to, betrayed, sent to the hole and to rehab. Honestly, his family should probably fucking worship him at this point after he was still kicking after all the shit they’d put him through. 

They talk for a little bit longer about their families, apparently, there is some kind of teen pregnancy curse in her family which Brandon thinks is wack as shit. He tells her a little bit more about Elmo and Libby, he doesn’t want to mention Alexis because she might google that shit or something and get the wrong idea. She’s a good listener, doesn’t interject with too many annoying comments and she’s always on his side which is nice. He finishes the Pho and nobody ever comes out of the room that she’s waiting in front of, so instead of abandoning her he says.

“Do you want to come and get dinner down in the Oak cafe, you should eat something that you didn’t burn to shit.” He suggests, and she smiles so wide that he thinks her face might break.

“Thank you so so much Sir! That would be totally amazing, I’ve never even seen inside there before.” She tells him with excitement, as she packs the boxes back into her stupidly oversized rucksack.

“Why the fuck are you carrying around something that big?” He has to ask her as she struggles to get the thing on her back, she’s about the same height as his fucking sister who he’s pretty sure couldn’t actually lift a pillow let alone that thing that Shirley is lugging around. It looks like she’s going camping or some shit rather than just walking down a school corridor, he’s not sure how she would ever fit if there was the regular amount of people moving about. 

“Well the bottom layer is all of my first aid kit, and I like to keep the full comprehensive kit on me just in case something is quite serious when I arrive and I need to treat the situation as an emergency.” Shirley retorts, patting the bottom section of her bag with her hand. “I keep my school supplies in the middle part, so that’s all my study materials and then emergency shrubs and spare shoes, then in the top I keep some snacks and other things that people have asked me to keep on me throughout the years.. i .. Master Charlie used to have a lot of things that he needed so I keep them on me just in case.”

“There’s no school right now so you can stop carrying all that shit around,” Brandon tells her gesturing to the middle section that she had described. “And this Charlie is he still around?”

Shirley's face drops a little even though she tries not to stop smiling. “Not at the moment no.” She says in a smaller voice, adjusting the backpack on her back. She looks a little bit like Brandon just doused her with freezing cold water and was now threatening to leave her in the snow. Shit, touchy much. 

“Then you don’t need any of his shit either, get a smaller backpack you looking stupid carrying around that massive thing indoors.” He doesn’t ask her about Charlie, because who cares about some ex-boyfriend that she’s still hung up on.

“Ok Sir! I’ll streamline and have a smaller backpack tomorrow!” Shirley promises her voice back to its usual eager tone as if her previous mood didn't exist at all. He’s honestly surprised that she doesn’t salute or something whenever he gives out an order, he wonders if they raise all submissives to act like robot slaves in Mississippi. 

Dinner with Shirley doesn’t suck, the backpack is annoyingly big under the table and she’s a little bit too enthusiastic over things like the unlimited salad bar and juice station but he guesses that poor people get excited over all kinds of weird shit. She lets him mostly talk about himself again, but that’s probably because his life is a lot more interesting than hers. Though he does find out that her favourite drink is something called Hot Butterscotch which he thinks sounds like some shit Strawberry Shortcake would drink, but she insists that he has to try it and that she’ll make him some and bring it over tomorrow. She also promises to bring him another flavour of Pho which honestly Brandon isn’t opposed to, at least if she comes over he won’t have to crouch on the floor of the corridor. 

When she disappears off to her campus Brandon decides that hanging out with her isn’t totally lame for now, and so he won’t lock her out when she comes tomorrow.


End file.
